Neighbors to the North, we've got a problem!

[pluckyduck]

Unstinkin' believable. Our governments are really screwing us up.

Let me start this off with a quote from an older post of nicholmere's in the shopping forum:

Thank you for the offer, that is very kind of you I'm not sure though if there would be duty or not. I have had friends in the States mail me baby presents, and I've never been charged duty, but I also had friends mail me things that I did have to pay extra for. I'm not sure if it has to do with the content of the parcel and/or its stated value, or maybe just who (Canada Post vs FedEx vs ??) happens to be processing the parcel. I've had to pay over $200 to get a loaner laptop from my client, but I've also received a library full of documentation with no sign of Canada Customs involvement.

my responding rant:

And THAT is why it is so dang hard for US businesses to sell to Canada. I get so mad on this topic, it makes me want to spit nails. If the PTB in the US and Canada would take a breath from all of their sweeping NAFTA paper signing and make the customs process easy and understandable there actually would be free trade.

The reason you've no idea what you may or may not have to pay duty on is that the exact way the customs papers are filled out makes all the difference..oh, and what the person from Customs who puts your stuff through had for lunch. And the position of the moon.

Do you know that Canada is one of the hardest countries to ship stuff to, customs-wise? For chriminely's sake, we're all practically the same damn country, just the "eh" and a few mounties and a little French making a difference.

I stopped selling to Canada a long time ago, and I can't tell you how many neighbors to the north I've insulted in the process. No, I won't take your order Ms. I Have an Order in My Hand Can I Give it to You Now It's not my fault!

A customer who is placing a $1000 order has a right to ask the company they are ordering from the total cost. Well, , how do I know what the duty will end up being? I've had customers get mad at me for what they got charged by customs.... or I've had factories fill out the paperwork wrong, get billed duty by Candian customs themselves...and then the bill falls to me. Just try to collect a couple hundred bucks from a customer who has already paid your bill for the merchandise.

Oh, and a typical bill from a supplier shipping to Canada for us includes a $40 or so documentation charge, for filling out all of the paperwork. I never have the nerve to pass along such a silly charge, so, there's something else to eat up the profit.

Absurd. And I haven't seen one whit of improvement since the whole NAFTA thing.

And then vonboob wrote:

Hey plucky, it really is absurd and would you know it: it goes both ways the same. Furthermore, ever since NAFTA it got worse. Ever tried to fill "North American content" certification for equipment assembled by a dozen of subcontractors? Now, even a simple blueprint needs a bill of lading!

I payed a hefty duty only once when I bought something in US what was manufactured in France. I had my lesson.

Now that I have history out of the way, let me give you my current rant.

In my direct marketing division, I stopped selling to Canada years ago. Our corporate side, though, doesn't have the luxury of picking where they ship to. A pharmaceutical client, for instance, is a large multinational, so our corporate folks are stuck shipping all over the world at the customer's request. Our warehouse manager has gotten quite proficient at doing the shipping thing - Europe, Latin America, Asia, no problems.

What is nearly costing him his job and his sanity? Canada!

Very Large Pharmaceutical Client (probably 1/4 of our company's entire business) gives us a gift program. Our job, which doesn't sound too hard, is to make logoed gifts (very inexpensive gifts, a mug I believe) and ship them to addresses in the United States and throughout the world.

I lectured the warehouse manager on what a sticky wicket shipping to Canada can be. (Even though this program isn't mine, the warehouse falls under my jurisdiction most of the time, so I try to keep my hand in any of the projects.) The guy listened to me (didn't quite believe me, but to his credit he listened) and consulted with the international experts at both Fed Ex and UPS before he started the shipments so he'd have his paperwork 100% in line for this all to go smoothly.

First time out, he ships 100 packages to Canada. 94 of them go through fine, 6 of them, the recipient is charged duty to receive a promotional mug they didn't ask for.

You wanna talk shitstorm? I'd imagine the screaming started at certain levels of the Very Large Pharmaceutical Company, reached our company at the president/owners level (the head honchos being the ones who were screamed at by the customer), and then dumped directly on my poor warehouse guy who did what he was told by the international folks at the shipping carriers.

Okay, back again. Again he goes over the specs, getting a different set of instructions this time, and again he ships another 100 packages.

Same deal.

The poor guy. 'round about the third time this happened, I'm thinking, you know, I really need to get involved here. It's not my problem, except for the part where if the guy drops dead from a heart attack, I've got nobody to run my warehouse. (He's very good. )

Now, of course, none of this is his fault, but in every royally f'd up situation, especially between large corporate folks, one person is the fall guy and that happens to be him.

So look out, I'm coming in. And I'm hunting for bear. The explanations of Canadian customs capriciousness only go so far with me. Both UPS and Fed Ex have said (paraphrase, but not much) "There is nothing we can do about Canadian Customs. There is no consistency. We can't control this. " Okay, tell me something I don't know.

All I care about is that you, UPS or FedEx, should under no circumstances actually try to collect money from the recipient. Period. A package has a problem, you either stop the package or just charge the duty to us. Period. I'm taking this one out of somebody's hide because it is not fair to my warehouse guy.

Meanwhile, is this outrageous or what? We are practically the same country and we cannot do business with each other effectively. What is going on and why is nobody talking about this? It is an outrage and a scandal.

Andrea

[Joubert[$]]

I've had the same issue with Canadian customs in a variety of ways. Funny that you should mention your warehouse manager. In a previous life, my distribution center manager (who oversaw multiple shipping points) hated shipping to Canada. We sent books all over the world (we were a pubishing company), but Canada killed him. We had an easier time in the Middle East where the shipment ended up moving to two "expediters", relatives of the royal family, we were told.

The regulations are onerous. I was glad to be out of that business, but I sell a lot of personal stuff on eBay and excluded foreign countries from my bids because I was tired of every third Canadian bidder asking me to fake an invoice. They were tired of their system too and simply went around it.

[quasar]

I guess I've been lucky. No one I've shipped to in Canada has ever had to pay duty. Of course, I've only shipped 15-20 times and almost all of those were marked gift (correctly).

Janice

[pluckyduck]

We apparently have the straight scoop here, having scooped through loads of **it to get there. I think there is one person in all of Fed Ex and one person in all of UPS who actually understands the Canadian system and on the 1437th try, we got hold of both of them.

While each country has its own unique set of rules and regulations, Canada is apparently uniquely unique, agreed on by both Fed Ex and UPS.

The gift regulation is a little muddy -- person to person (no businesses involved), anything under $60 Canadian should go through without duty. Involve one business (either sender or recipient) and the limit is $20 Canadian without duty. (We'd been told $60 repeatedly by both Fed Ex and UPS, which seems like a on them and nobody else... that's not that muddy, now is it?)

What confounded everybody involved to this point was why, if customs was assessing duty on a handful of the shipments, why the recipient was still being charged for duty even though we'd done everything we possibly could to say don't bill them, bill us.

The answer lies in the definition of "importer". Apparently to export properly you need to import. It's important!

We were missing our IMPORTER'S DOCUMENT. We needed a three page form on file that certifies us as importers in Canada.



But, you say, you are in New Jersey and you aren't trying to bring things into Canada you are trying to ship things to Canada? You scratch your head and wonder if that doesn't indeed make us exporters instead of importers?

Silly you. We were that young and naive once too, you know. Turns out that most companies in Canada have an "importer of record", someone who is on file to import goods for them. If we're not certified as importers, than no matter what we fill out what forms wherever, no matter how much we state emphatically that we'll pay the duty! We'll pay the duty! .... the importer of record for the company is charged, and he/she/it/they charge the customer.

Can't Fed Ex or UPS be our importer like they are in 4722 countries around the world?

Nope.

In Canada, the three page form is supposed to be magic and erase all of our troubles away.

We'll see. Next shipment coming up shortly.



Andrea
who loves her Canadian neighbors but isn't too fond of customs or Fed Ex or UPS at the moment

[hadassahchana[$]]

Let me ask a stupid question, Andrea: do you have a Customs broker? I called around about this just a little, and was told that "everyone who sends goods to Canada hires a customs broker."

And btw, when I used to have stuff shipped from Eddie Bauer, the lady on the phone knew exactly how much duty I'd be charged - and she was never ever wrong. Somehow, they have access to this info- although one would think that it would be really easy to find it.

Cindy, feeling really sure that this was a patronizing response

[pluckyduck]

Originally posted by hadassahchana
Let me ask a stupid question, Andrea: do you have a Customs broker? I called around about this just a little, and was told that "everyone who sends goods to Canada hires a customs broker."

And btw, when I used to have stuff shipped from Eddie Bauer, the lady on the phone knew exactly how much duty I'd be charged - and she was never ever wrong. Somehow, they have access to this info- although one would think that it would be really easy to find it.

Cindy, feeling really sure that this was a patronizing response

Aren't you a sweetie?

The idea is, when we ship Fed Ex and UPS, they act as the customs broker.... or rather their agents do. Our shipments are casual. Large Customer might have a need to send 50 packages around the world - 1 to Israel, 2 to England, 3 to Spain, etc. Fed Ex and UPS have existing customs broker relationships in every country they ship to, so they handle everything for us. Fed Ex advances the money for whatever fees and then bills us.

The only place it got broke was in Canada. Regardless of how unusual the Canadian set up is, you would think that Fed Ex and UPS might have a better handle on getting our stuff through Canada, wouldn't you?

As far as Eddie Bauer or any of the major retailers go, yeah, them actually knowing what they are doing makes sense. They're sending the same thing (clothing) many times a day. If they couldn't do it, then nobody could.... and then where would you get your kids' clothes?

Andrea

[nicholmere]

Originally posted by pluckyduck

We'll see. Next shipment coming up shortly.

Have you sent the next shipment yet?